The four years between 1549 and 1553 were absolutely formative in the evolving and emerging kingship of Edward VI. The political structures of court and Council began to mould themselves around a maturing king in a complex and sophisticated response to Edward's age, ability, and personality. But the Dudley years come with some heavy historiographical baggage, and any interpretation that reconstructs the gradual emergence of personal monarchy in the early 1550s runs headlong into two deeply ingrained traditions in the secondary literature: the idea of Edward as a king manipulated and controlled by the men around him, and the notion – which actually sits quite awkwardly with John Dudley's appalling historical reputation – that the last years of the reign represented a period of rescue and preservation for the institutional Privy Council (see above, chapter 1, pp. 25–7). In a letter written to Dudley in the late summer of 1552, William Cecil quoted Proverbs 11:14, ubi non sunt consilia cadit populus – ‘Where no good counsel is, there the people decay’ – and Dudley replied that it should be ‘often had in mynde emonge us’. For his part, he would with ‘all reverens’ be ready to do his duty without weariness ‘so longe as lyfe shall be in my bodye, for there I shalbe suer to see thoner of my master and my contrye preservyd’.